


A Book Full of Ghosts

by jottingprosaist (jane_potter)



Series: The Wheel Turns [6]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Immigrant Feels, Morrowind Feels, Stories within Stories, the Dragonborn's parents have their own histories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 14:51:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11648868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jottingprosaist
Summary: In forty years, Lleros Ulawayn will waken to his Dragonborn blood. Tonight, his father reads him a story before bed.





	A Book Full of Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt by Chamerion: "a book full of ghosts." Feel free to drop me prompts [on my tumblr](jottingprosaist.tumblr.com/inbox).

Lleros comes to bed ten minutes after the splashing of the bath tub ends. Nilos obligingly lifts the covers for his son to crawl quietly in. He curls up against Nilos’ side, small and warm and soapy-sweet.

Lleros is already yawning widely, but Nilos exchanges his monograph on soil amendment for the book on the bedside table. Lleros strokes the alit-leather cover sleepily before he fumbles it open. Nilos holds it for Lleros to flip through, watching tiny fingers linger on every soft-edged page.

“This one,” Lleros says at last, very predictably despite his deliberation. He likes the illustration of the guar.

Lleros should have a guar of his own. A pony guar is a good companion for a child: docile and simple enough that it’s willing to toddle in circles around the courtyard for hours, loyal enough to step on venomous lizards and insects.

Skyrim doesn’t have guars. Or venomous wildlife. Lleros needs protecting from the other children, not scorpions.

Nilos reads the story of _The Spotted Guar_ , including all the noises. Lleros laughs. He’s never heard a guar, ridden one, been chased off the road during mating season. He doesn’t know. It’s just a story to him.

“Another one,” Lleros mumbles. His hair is curling damply. It needs trimming. He wants to grow it out like Armod, but he’s only four. The last haircut is a tradition for a child’s ninth birthday.

“You should read this one with me,” Nilos suggests, turning to _[The Two Clever Fishermen](http://sunderlorn.tumblr.com/post/153085622917/the-two-clever-fishermen)_. “Don’t fuss. You know the letters.” 

Lleros stumbles through the opening lines in Dunmeris, even with Nilos nudging him along here and there. His pronunciation is terrible. He’s nowhere near fluent enough to read the words in Dunmeris and speak them in Imperial. Or to understand the words he’s reading aloud, except the smallest ones.

“Can’t you just read it?” Lleros complains after half a page.

Nilos doesn’t fight, even though Lleros should learn. He doesn’t want to listen any more as his language falls broken from his son’s lips.

At least Lleros knows and likes the story itself. He answers the familiar riddles before the characters can, giggling at his own cleverness. He told Nilos once that he wanted to marry Dunsalipal. Duyana and Nilos had a good chuckle over that, but Nilos was truly relieved, in a way. It was good that Lleros should value clan-love and cleverness, should look on his own people with affection. Sometimes the voice that came out of his mouth was Nordic in more than accent.

In the other room, Duyana is still quietly splashing in her own bath, so Nilos turns to _The Kollop’s Pearl_. “Once,” he says, “there was a man who lived by the sea. He wanted many things, but had few.”

This was his mother’s favorite story to read him in the afternoon, during tutoring. Or perhaps it was simply the one she thought most important for Nilos to learn from. Either way, he learned his letters to this tale: _“You ask for much,” said the kollop. “I am only one creature.” The man begged, “Please. You know I am grateful. One more miracle?”_ And when Nilos’ grandfather indentured him to a Telvanni mage in order to pay debts, Nilos’ mother gave him her kollop pearl hair comb. 

“‘Why did you break open the pearl?’” Nilos reads gravely, because he does not do a funny voice for the kollop. “'She would have accepted your gift if you hadn’t smashed it. Now it’s worthless.’”

He pauses and strokes a hand over Lleros’ lamb-shorn black hair. Lleros stirs– still awake and listening, then.

“'I didn’t know if it was good enough,’ the man said. ‘It came out of your dirty shell! I had to check. I’m so sorry I doubted you. Please give me another pearl. I’ll be in your debt forever.’ But the kollop could not forgive this final ingratitude, and swam away into the deep ocean forever.”

Nilos sold the pearl comb over a century ago. It bought him bread for a month. His mother, most likely, died even longer ago. He doesn’t know what is worse: that he is so bitter, or that, at the same time, he really _is_ grateful. 

“ _Close your eyes, sweet short-hair. Go to sleep now_.” Nilos cannot say this in Imperial. He hates to feel naked in a language not his own. 

“Hm?”

But Lleros is mostly asleep, not really asking. When Nilos puts aside the book and settles himself down for the night, Lleros curls up in the curve of his body without protest. A few minutes later, Duyana slips on on the other side of Lleros, kisses Nilos’ wrist, and rubs his aching knuckles with her thumb until she falls asleep.

It’s not a terrible story to tell his son. But that’s only because Nilos has promised himself he’ll never be the kollop. He’s not a stranger, giving gifts out of virtue and pity, expecting gratitude in return. He’s Lleros’ father, and he will never leave Lleros alone on shore, begging him to return.

He wonders how long his family’s ghosts will linger with their bones, buried and unhallowed beneath the ashfall, a thousand miles away from him forever.


End file.
